How to Simplify Your Life

The reason we are simplifying our lives is to draw closer to the Lord. Then we will have more time for Him in our minds, in our heads and in our spirits. Therefore, it is important that we do not view simplifying our lives as a fad. The Holy Spirit wants to prepare us for more of Himself and more room for the Kingdom in our hearts and in the heads of other people around us. 

It is also important that we look at ourselves as soldiers in a war. When we go to war, we only have the weapons that we need and not a whole pile of extra stuff. God wants us to be well prepared, but He doesn’t want us to be overburdened with excess baggage. When we are in a war, we become lean, tough and mean. That’s the way we need to be to win the war. We do not speak of God being efficient very often, but He is extremely efficient. He is the One who thought of the Word and He is the One who’s the most efficient and focused. I believe God does things very efficiently and very exactly. We need to be willing to cooperate with Him and make as much room as possible for Him. 

I have some principles I would like to share with you on how to simplify your lives. It is important for us to start with the first priority. 
1 Ask God to give you the grace to simplify your life. This seems very basic, but a lot of us miss this important step. Go to the throne and ask the Lord for the grace to make our lives simpler. When we ask Him, we are opening our hearts and spirits so that He can do this for us. It is very important that we go to God and ask Him to help us do this. This is a God given ability; it is grace, it is free. We do not have to earn it or lather up a sweat. All of us want to plan but if God gave us a plan, then we do not have to listen to the Holy Spirit. God wants us to keep listening to the Holy Spirit. He does not give us the ABC plan so that we will depend on Him. We need to depend on Jesus. 

2. Life becomes more complicated as we worry and become fearful because we take control. We need to ask God when we become worried and fearful. When we are worried and become fearful, we try to take control. What if my job does not work out, or what if my son does not do well in school? The worst thing is that we take the control away from God; then God cannot simplify our lives and our lives become more complicated. When God is in control, our lives become simpler. We need to ask God to help us when we become more worried and fearful so that we can repent of our attitude. 

3. Ask God for the ability to trust Him. The more we trust Him, the simpler our lives will become. If we are going to ask God to be in control, we need to ask God for more trust in Him. The principle is that the more we trust Him, the simpler our lives will become. This principle is illustrated in children, that as they trust their dad and things go well for them. When we have trusted God in the past, the solutions have come. When we have not trusted Him, things become more complicated because we try to work things out in the flesh. We try to figure things out and tell God what to do; He does not like that. 

4. Give up our own agendas. Sometimes we have our own agendas and when the Lord tries to tell us something, we tell Him it is not on my agenda. When we have secret agendas, then people are surprised when we get mad at them. That makes our life more complicated when we do not communicate our agendas. Even if we shared our agendas, we would still make our lives more complicated. We need to give up our agendas. You know you have an agenda when you use this phrase, “I have to do this or I have to do that.” That is a signal that you are beginning an agenda. It would be better to say, if the Lord wills it, I will do this.’ We need to be more spontaneous and flexible to simplify our lives. The world says that agendas make our lives easier; but in the spirit, agendas make our lives more complicated. When we listen to our own agenda, we are not listening to the Holy Spirit. 

5. If possible, prepare ahead of time meals and routine tasks. In this way we can have more of the present to be with God. This is a good habit to anticipate to create simplicity. One of the devil’s favorite tricks is to get us so busy that we do not have time for the presence of the Lord. The more things I can do ahead, then I can accomplish the goal of relaxing and being with God. Preparation and anticipation give us more simplicity in our lives. 

6. Let God give you understanding of people and events when He wants to. Do not waste time trying to figure people out. This real thing complicates our lives. We waste time trying to figure out what our husbands are going to do and what our friends are thinking; It drains us of our energy and our time. Do not waste time trying to figure people out, let the Lord show you. The Lord will give you revelation if He wants you to understand someone. He will give it to you if you just trust Him. 

His revelations are always fresh, beautiful and right on time. It is always so wonderful when the Lord does it. Let the Lord give us revelation and do not try to work and sweat for revelation. Trying to figure out peoples’ motives and anticipate what they are going to do drains us of our energy. 

7. Ask God what is most important to Him and keep doing it. God has given me certain instructions in the past several months and I have done them faithfully and passionately. There is real strength in doing them repeatedly. I kept doing them because He did not give me anything else to do. I will keep doing them until He gives me something else to do. If we ask the Lord for His priorities and we keep doing them the best that we can, then God will bless us and make our lives simpler. We need to regard distraction as being the enemy that makes our lives more complicated. The devil wants to distract us from God’s priorities and make our lives more complicated. God wants to make our lives simpler and freer. 

8. Develop relationships and not things. We spend a lot of time developing things like careers, ideas, or other things. The real future and safety net is going to be in relationships and not in things you do or in accomplishments. We need to develop a network of relationships that in the end will make our lives simpler. Relationships can make our lives simpler when God is at the center of them. A God given relationship is designed to make our lives simpler, clearer and more focused. It is very important that we ask God for God given and God driven relationships. 

9. Listen and let God speak to you at all times. Always have an attitude of hearing and listening. Be humble, let everyone be your teacher and God can use anyone to give you wisdom or help. Be ready for a better way as we are open to other people’s suggestions. If we have the wisdom to know that everyone can be our teacher, it will make our lives simpler because God can speak to us in so many different ways. A humble and listening heart makes our lives simpler because we have the flexibility and the freedom to obey Him. 

10. Ask God to possess all of you. This will help you to be more focused and God can accomplish more. We talk about the devil possessing us, but we need God to possess our heart, our mind, our body and everything we have. The more we are possessed by God, the simpler life will become. The more we are possessed by the Lord, the clearer we can hear Him and the more direct our actions will be to please Him. 

11. Love God and others and let Him deal with sin. Then you will bear much fruit. We spend too much time trying to deal with our sin. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to deal with our sin. We spend time and energy dealing with sin when it is our responsibility to repent. We are to love God, and as we love God, He will deal with our sin. The first two commandments are to love God with all your heart, mind and strength. Then we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Let the Holy Spirit deal with evil and you just love God. This will make life incredibly simpler. 

12. If you do not need it or don’t use it, get rid of it because it affects our attitude of leanness and meanness. If I do not need it or use it, I should get rid of it because all it will do is clutter my mind, stuff my spirit or junk up my environment. We give up something so that we can have more time with God. I do not want to spend so much attention on this because I want to love you more, Lord. 

Be lean and mean for Jesus. Long to love Him with all our passion and strength. We do that by getting rid of stuff that God wants us to get rid of. Maybe somebody needs your stuff. They need what you have. If you do not need it or use it, it is only going to drag you down spiritually, emotionally, and physically. That is a prophetic warning, especially for the times ahead. 

13. Share your resources and time to make the lives of others simpler and God will do the same for you. It is a principle from the Bible, that when we give to others, God will give more back to us. When we think about helping other people simplify their lives it gets others thinking what we can do. Then we start brainstorming and thinking of things to do together. So, it is good for us share our ideas and thoughts. A good question is to simply ask, “what can I do for you?” 

14. Do one thing at a time with all your heart for the Lord. Even the most successful person can only do one thing at a time. The reason why they are successful is that they do it well when they do it. The ability to put all of yourself into something that you are doing is what Jesus had when He served his Father in heaven. His focus was on obeying and glorifying His Father in all that He did and our focus should be the same, It is a myth to believe that we can do multiple things at once. The ability to do one thing at a time will both simplify and enhance our lives. Let us learn to do one thing for God one thing at a time. When we learn to do simply this, it will simplify our lives. 

15. Enjoy today and let God have tomorrow. We make our lives much more complicated by wandering and worrying about what will happen to us tomorrow. A day that is lived well today is the best preparation for tomorrow. We cannot always enjoy every day but we can use it to help make a better tomorrow. God will often give us things to enjoy during the day if we stop to appreciate them. It could be a loving encounter with God, or the joy of having a friend, or completing something that was important to us. Let us be so busy in our doing, and loving. and believing in today that tomorrow will take care of itself God holds all our yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows in His loving hands and He will take care of us. 

16. Love laughter and treasure love. These are things that God has given us to make our lives simpler. The perspective and the release that a good laugh can give us help us to see life in a clearer and better way. The love and affection of our friends gives us strength and purpose. These are reminders of heaven for us where there will be great joy and love for us eternally. When we have merry hearts to does us good and does others good too. Loving God and others will make our lives simpler, but evil makes our lives more complicated. 

17. Give up your reputation and God will give you His. We make our lives much more complicated by being so concerned with what other people think of us. We expend a lot of energy defending ourselves. If we trust God to defend us, our lives will be much simpler because we will not have to worry about so many details, A childlike faith is the best defense against the many woes of life. God will give us wisdom when we most need it. God will decide if we are successful enough in our lives. It is His opinion and not the opinion of others that will stand the test of time. It is better to have Gods approval and reputation than to spend a lot of time making your own. This will be our inheritance forever.